Three shots that changed history: How bin Laden was killed

Residents of Abbottabad, Pakistan, stand in May 2011 near where Osama bin Laden was killed. The Navy SEAL who shot bin Laden said he encountered him on the third floor, just inside a doorway, with his hands on a woman’s shoulders, pushing her forward.

Photo By Maya Alleruzzo/AP

A photo taken with a night vision scope shows U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2009. SEALs wore scopes in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

In an image released by the White House, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other officials watch an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden.

Editor’s note: First of two parts. For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden tells his story, speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family. And the startling failure of the U.S. government to help its most experienced and skilled warriors carry on with their lives. He agreed to tell his story to reporter Phil Bronstein after checking his background, including Bronstein’s reporting from war zones. This two-part series is adapted from the story published jointly online at esquire.com and at the Center for Investigative Reporting. It will appear in the March edition of Esquire magazine.

The reason we knew this was a special mission is because we'd just finished an Afghanistan deployment and were on a training trip, diving in Miami, when a few of us got recalled to the Command in Virginia Beach.

Another SEAL Team 6 team was on official standby; normally, that's the team that blows out for a contingency operation.

[But they were not chosen, to better cloak what was going to happen.]

There was so much going on: the Libya thing, the Arab Spring. We knew something good was going to go down. We didn't know how good.

The first day's briefing, they actually kind of lied to us, being very vague. They mentioned underwater cables because of the earthquake in Japan or some craziness. They hinted at Libya. They said it was a compound somewhere in a bowl, and we were going to have two aircraft get us there, and we don't know how many are inside, but we have to get something out. You won't have any air support.

It was also weird that the entire Red Squadron was in town, but they kicked everyone out of the briefing except those guys who were going, 23 and four backups.

[The Shooter was a mission team leader. Almost everyone chosen had a one or two ranking in the squadron, the most experienced guys. The group was split into four tactical teams, with the Shooter as leader of the external security group — the dog, Cairo, two snipers and a CIA interpreter to keep whoever might show up in the area out of the internal action.

[The group left Virginia on a Sunday morning, April 10, 2011, to drive to the CIA's Harvey Point, N.C., center for another briefing and the start of training.]

The Master Chief was saying JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] would be there, the secretary of defense might be there, the Pak/Afghan CIA desk, too. That's when the wheels started spinning for me: This is big.

[By Monday, the team was assembled in a big classroom inside a one-story building.]

They actually had security sitting outside. No one else was allowed in. A JSOC general, Pak/Afghan and other D.C. officials, and the ST6 commanding officer were there. The SEAL commander, cool as ever, said, “OK, we're as close as we've ever been to UBL.” [The acronym U.S. agencies used to refer to Osama bin Laden.] And that was it. He kind of looked at us, and we looked at him and nodded. There was none of that cheering b-------. We were thinking, Yeah, OK, good. It's about time that we kill this m-----------. It was simple.

This is what I came for. Jealousies aside, one of us is going to have the best chance of killing this guy.

[During the daylong briefing, the SEALs heard how the government found the compound in Abbottabad, how they were watching it, analyzing it, why they believed bin Laden might be there. He, UBL, had become known as the Pacer, the tall guy in satellite imagery who neither left nor mixed with the others.

[It was the CIA woman, now immortalized in books and movies, who gave the briefing.] “Yeah,” she told us. “We got him. This is him. This is my life's work. I'm positive.”

[By then, government and military officials had been considering four options.] They were either going to bomb the piss out of the compound with 2,000-pound ordnance, they were going to send us in, do some kind of joint thing with the Pakis or try what was called a “hammer throw,” where a drone flies by and chucks one f------ bomb at the guy. But they didn't want any collateral damage. And they wanted to make sure he was dead and not in a cave or a safe room.

[After the group settled into “motellike” rooms, with common areas that had TVs and a kitchen, the team started strategizing with a model of the compound on a large table. Then they drove to a full-scale mock-up for a walk-through.]

The next day, the helos came, and we started doing iteration training based on how we wanted to hit it.

Once I realized what was going on, I actually moved myself to one of the assault teams, even if I was no longer a team leader. We didn't need that many guys on the exterior team, and I'll go fast-rope on the roof with what I started calling the Martyrs Brigade, because as soon as we landed, I figured the house was going to blow up. But we were also going to be the guys in there first to kill him.

I was usually the guy to joke around when we were planning these things — we all dick around a lot. But I was like, “Hey guys, we have to take this f------ serious. There's a 90 percent chance this is a one-way mission. We're gonna die, so let's do this right.”

[The Shooter and the rest of the team made one last night run on the mock-up of the compound in North Carolina, then drove back to their homes and headquarters in Virginia for a brief break.

[There were goodbyes to his wife and sleeping children.]

Normally she'd say, “I'm fine, just go.” This time, there was nothing fine about her. Like this would be the last time we'd see each other.

Saying goodbye is just horrible. I don't even want to talk about it. ... This is the last time I'm going to see these children.

WAITING FOR THE 'GO'

[This was ultimately an assault mission like hundreds he'd been on, different in only one respect.

The group discussed what would happen if they were surrounded by Pakistani troops.]

We would surrender. The original plan was to have Vice President [Joe] Biden fly to Islamabad and negotiate our release with Pakistan's president.

This is hearsay, but I understand Obama said, “Hell no. My guys are not surrendering. What do we need to rain hell on the Pakistani military?” That was the one time in my life I was thinking, I am f------ voting for this guy. I had a picture of him lying in bed at night, thinking, You're not f------ with my guys. Like, he's thinking about us.

We got word that we'd be scrambling jets on the border to back us up.

[An Ambien, a C-17 cargo plane ride, a short stop in Germany, and they were in Afghanistan.

At Jalalabad, the Shooter saw the CIA analyst pacing.] She asked me why I was so calm. I told her, “We do this every night.” This is just a longer flight. She looked at me and said, “One hundred percent he's on the third floor. So get to there if you can.” She was probably 90 percent sure, and her emotion pushed that to 100.

Another SEAL squadron, which was already in Afghanistan and would have normally been the assaulters, were very welcoming to us.

[They would form the Quick Reaction Force flying in behind, on the Chinooks. The Red Team visitors stayed in “transient” housing.]

During the day, the group would work with our gear, work out.

[Nighttime was poker and refreshments, or what is called “fellowship,” while they waited for a go from Obama himself.]

ABOARD THE HELOS

[There was one last briefing and an awesome speech from Navy SEAL Adm. Bill McRaven comparing the looming raid and its fighters to the movie “Hoosiers.”

Then they're gathered by a fire pit, suiting up. Just before he got on the chopper to leave for Abbottabad, the Shooter called his dad.] I didn't know where he was, but I found out later he was in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I said, “Hey, it's time to go to work,” and I'm thinking, I'm calling for the last time. I thought there was a good chance of dying.

He knew something significant was up, though he didn't know what. [The Shooter could hear him start to tear up.] He told me later that he sat in his pickup in that parking lot for an hour and couldn't get out of the car.

[The Red Team and members of the other squad hugged one another instead of the usual handshakes before they boarded their separate aircraft. The hangars had huge stadium lights pointing outward so no one from the outside could see what was going on.

Ninety minutes in the chopper to get from Jalalabad to Abbottabad. The Shooter noted when the bird turned right, into Pakistani airspace.]

I was sitting next to the commanding officer, and he's relaying everything to McRaven.

I was counting back and forth to a thousand to pass the time. It's a long flight, but we brought these collapsible camping chairs, so we're not uncomfortable. But it's getting old and you're ready to go and you don't want your legs falling asleep.

Every 15 minutes, they'd tell us we hadn't been painted (made by Pakistani radar).

I remember banking to the south, which meant we were getting ready to hit. We had about another 15 minutes. Instead of counting, for some reason I said to myself the George Bush 9/11 quote: [Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.] I could just hear his voice, and that was neat. I started saying it again and again to myself. Then I started to get pumped up. I'm like, this is so on.

THE RAID STARTS

[Above the compound, the Shooter could hear only his helo pilot in the flight noise.]

“Dash 1 going around” meant the other chopper was circling back around. I thought they'd taken fire and were just moving. I didn't realize they crashed right then. But our pilot did. He put our five perimeter guys out, went up, and went right back down outside the compound, so we knew something was wrong. We weren't sure what it was.

We opened the doors, and I looked out.

The area looked different than where we trained because we're in Pakistan now. There are the lights, the city. There's a golf course. And we're, this is some serious Navy SEAL s--- we're going to do. This is so bad-ass. I don't care if I die right now. This is so awesome. There was concern, but no fear.

I was carrying a big-ass sledgehammer to blow through a wall if we had to. There was a gate on the northeast corner, and we went right to that. We put a breaching charge on it, clacked it, and the door peeled like a tin can. But it was a fake gate with a wall behind it. That was good, because we knew that someone was defending themselves. There's something good here.

We walked down the main long wall to get to the driveway to breach the door there. We were about to blow that next door on the north end when one of the guys from the bird that crashed came around the other side and opened it.

So we were moving down the driveway and I looked to the left. The compound was exactly the same. The mock-up had been dead-on. To actually be there and see the house with the three stories, the blacked-out windows, high walls and barbed wire — and I'm actually in that security driveway with the carport, just like the satellite photos.

While we were in the carport, I heard gunfire from two different places nearby. [In one flurry, a SEAL shot Abrar al-Kuwaiti, the brother of bin Laden's courier, and his wife, Bushra.] One of our guys involved told me, “Jesus, these women are jumping in front of these guys. They're trying to martyr themselves. Another sign that this is a serious place. Even if bin Laden isn't here, someone important is.”

We crossed to the south side of the main building. [There the Shooter ran into another team member, who told him,] “Hey, man, I just shot a woman.” He was worried. I told him not to be. “We should be thinking about the mission, not about going to jail.”

'THIS IS AMAZING'

When we entered the main building, there was a hallway with rooms off to the side. Dead ahead is the door to go upstairs. There were women screaming downstairs. They saw the others get shot, so they were upset. I saw a girl, about 5, crying in the corner, first room on the right as we were going in. I went, picked her up and brought her to another woman in the room on the left so she didn't have to be just with us. She seemed too out of it to be scared. There had to be 15 people downstairs, all sleeping together in that one room. Two dead bodies were also in there.

Normally, the SEALs have a support or communications guy who watches the women and children. But this was a pared-down mission intended strictly for an assault, without that extra help. We didn't really have anyone that could stay back.

So we're looking down the hallway at the door to the stairwell. I figured this was the only door to get upstairs, which means the people upstairs can't get down. If there had been another way up, we would have found it by then.

Right then, I heard one of the guys talking about something, blah, blah, blah, the helo crashed. I asked, What helo crashed? He said it was in the yard. And I said, B-------! We're never getting out of here now. We have to kill this guy. I thought we'd have to steal cars and drive to Islamabad. Because the other option was to stick around and wait for the Pakistani military to show up. Hopefully, we don't shoot it out with them. We're going to end up in prison here, with someone negotiating for us, and that's just bad. That's when I got concerned.

The breacher had to blast the door twice for it to open. We started rolling up.

[Team members didn't need much communication, or any orders, once they were on line.] We're reading each other every second.

I was about five guys back on the stairway when I saw the point man holding up. He'd seen Khalid, bin Laden's [23-year-old] son. I heard him whisper, “Khalid ... come here,” in Arabic, then in Pashto. He used his name. That confused Khalid. He's probably thinking, “I just heard s --- Arabic and s--- Pashto. Who the f--- is this?” He leaned out, armed with an AK, and he got blasted by the point man. That call-out was one of the best combat moves I've ever seen. Khalid was the last line of security.

I remember thinking then: I wish we could live through this night, because this is amazing.

The point man moved past doors on the second floor and the four or five guys in front of me started to peel off to clear those rooms, which is always how the flow works. We're just clearing as we go, watching our backs.

[They step over and past Khalid, who's dead on the stairs.]

KILLING BIN LADEN

The point man, at that time, saw a guy on the third floor, peeking around a curtain in front of the hallway. [Bin Laden was the only adult male left to find.] The point man took a shot, maybe two, and the man upstairs disappeared back into a room. I didn't see that because I was looking back.

I don't think he hit him. He thinks he might have.

So there's the point man on the stairs, waiting for someone to move into the No. 2 position. Originally I was five or six man, but the train flowed off to clear the second floor. So I roll up behind him. On the third floor, there were two chicks yelling at us, and the point man was yelling at them, and he said to me, “Hey, we need to get moving. These bitches is getting truculent.” I remember saying to myself, Truculent? Really? Love that word.

By then we realized we weren't getting more guys. We had to move, because bin Laden is now going to be grabbing some weapon because he's getting shot at. I had my hand on the point man's shoulder and squeezed, a signal to go. The two of us went up. On the third floor, he tackled the two women in the hallway right outside the first door on the right, moving them past it just enough. He thought he was going to absorb the blast of suicide vests; he was going to kill himself so I could get the shot. It was the most heroic thing I've ever seen.

I rolled past him into the room, just inside the doorway.

There was bin Laden standing there. He had his hands on a woman's shoulders, pushing her ahead, not exactly toward me but by me, in the direction of the hallway commotion. It was his youngest wife, Amal.

[The SEALs had night scopes, but it was coal-black for bin Laden and the other residents.] He can hear, but he can't see.

He looked confused. And way taller than I was expecting. He had a cap on and didn't appear to be hit. I can't tell you 100 percent, but he was standing and moving. He was holding her in front of him. Maybe as a shield, I don't know.

For me, it was a snapshot of a target ID, definitely him. Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory.

I'm just looking at him from right here. [He moves his hand out from his face about 10 inches.] He's got a gun on a shelf right there, the short AK he's famous for. And he's moving forward. I don't know if she's got a vest and she's being pushed to martyr them both. He's got a gun within reach. He's a threat. I need to get a head shot so he won't have a chance to clack himself off [blow himself up].

In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he's going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.

And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I've ever done, or the worst thing I've ever done?

Everybody wanted him dead, but nobody wanted to say, “Hey, you're going to kill this guy.” It was just sort of understood that's what we wanted to do.

Back at the Jalalabad base, we pulled bin Laden out of the bag to show McRaven and the CIA. While they were still checking the body, I brought the agency woman over. We looked down and I asked, “Is that your guy?” She was crying. That's when I took my magazine out of my gun and gave it to her as a souvenir. Twenty-seven bullets left in it. “I hope you have room in your backpack for this.” That was the last time I saw her.

Phil Bronstein is the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently serves as executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting. This piece was reported in cooperation with CIR.